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Mr Green to pay £3m for regulatory failures

A gambling operator is to pay £3 million as part of the Gambling Commission’s targeted investigation into online casinos.

Mr Green is the ninth gambling business to face action as part of a regulator probe that has led to more than £20 million in penalty packages since 2018.

Since the enforcement activity began, six operators have surrendered their licence and can no longer transact with consumers in Britain. During the course of investigations into the nine most serious operating licence cases the Commission examined the actions of 22 individual Personal Management Licence holders. Of these, six surrendered their licence, six received a formal warning, one received an advice to conduct, seven are still ongoing and no further action was taken against two.

As part of the penalty Mr Green will pay £3 million to the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms because it failed to have effective procedures aimed at preventing harm and money laundering.

As a result of these failures Mr Green:

  • did not carry out social responsibility interaction with a customer who won £50,000, gambled it away and deposited thousands more pounds
  • took ten year old evidence of a £176,000 claims payout as satisfactory evidence of source of funds for a customer who deposited over £1 million
  • accepted a photograph of a laptop screen showing currency in dollars on an alleged crypto trading account as adequate source of funds.

Richard Watson, Gambling Commission Executive Director, said: “Our investigation uncovered systemic failings in respect of both Mr Green’s social responsibility and AML controls which affected a significant number of customers across its online casinos.

“Consumers in Britain have the right to know that there are checks and balances in place which will help keep them safe and ensure gambling is crime-free – and we will continue to crack down on operators who fail in this area.”

The online casino enforcement work is in addition to the Commission’s ongoing strategy to make gambling online safer. This has included:

  • strengthening online age and identity verification
  • enhanced rules and guidance on identifying and interacting with customers who may be at risk of harm
  • the banning of credit cards.

The regulator is also pushing the industry to raise standards in the areas of VIP practices, advertising technology and game design, and is currently looking at online stake limits.

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Petfre to pay £322,000 for money laundering failures

Last updated: 16 January 2023

Show updates to this content

Following an audit the 'part of a regulator probe', 'Personal Management Licence' and 'National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms' links have been updated.

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